


FailSafe: A "Ready Player One" Spin-off

by K (Tsumugi_Shirogan)



Category: Ready Player One - Ernest Cline
Genre: Battlestar Galactica - Ship, Battlestar Galactica References, Black Comedy, Crime, Cyberpunk, F/F, F/M, Gaming, Gen, Heist, Heistakes, Internet, M/M, Memes, Multi, Oasis, Other, Popular Culture, Robbery, Sociopolitics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 20:43:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17291072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tsumugi_Shirogan/pseuds/K
Summary: DISCLAIMER:THIS IS A WORK OF FAN-FICTION. NONE OF THIS IS TECHNICALLY CANON, BUT INFERRED FROM CANON AT THE AUTHOR’S DISCRETION. PLEASE SUPPORT THE OFFICIAL RELEASE.An unofficial spin-off/fanfiction set around a decade before RDP, within the OASIS and IRL; a cyberpunk black comedy set around bank heists, assassins, explosions, the Battlestar Galactica, and a very important potted plant.





	FailSafe: A "Ready Player One" Spin-off

The world around us burned as shrapnel and white hot lead bounced around, as we sprinted for our lives.

It had gone horribly, horribly wrong. Was it a set-up? Was there a mole? Who knows. Either way, this was a disaster. We’d already lost Alpha; Beta had been arrested; and the last three of us – myself (Omega, username Damokles, and IRL name of Akito Furuta), Gamma, and Epsilon – were currently rushing down an increasing number of corridors, attempting to find our way out and survive.

It was gonna be the greatest robbery in the history of robberies; the big one, the one with all the marbles at stake. We’d kept the plan between ourselves, stealthed it all up in there over years of planning, including stealing schematics of the planet – Nexus, the de facto capital of the OASIS, a massive machine world and ecumenopolis - and pretending to be employees, etcetera. But shit had hit the fan; we got to an empty vault, and found ourselves essentially surrounded with enough firepower to orbit Arnold Schwarzenegger.

So, here we were: Pockets empty, armour running out, out of ammo, and shittin’ bricks.

One of the corridors shifted again, and we found ourselves quickly running out of space. I chucked myself off the side, managing to cross the gap in time; Gamma sprinted across, holding a hand out for Epsilon; but to my disappointment, he failed to grab on in time, and myself and Gamma watched as he fell into the endless abyss. We didn’t have time to keep watching; we continued running, dodging endless grenades, missiles and literal rocks being pelted at us.

We reached the service hangar where we’d left the shuttle – only for it to explode in our face, blasting us backwards.

Thankfully, there was a second ship nearby, a smaller maintenance shuttle but good enough for now. Gamma got the engine running whilst I continued shooting behind us, aiming for the head every time for extra hit points and criticals. The ship lifted, and I sprinted into it just as Gamma managed to pull out of the harbour, although at the time it was almost as if, instead of the old idiom of “from the frying pan and into the fire”, we simply went from one fire to another, dodging endless AA-fire and whatnot from the defences.

But I sighed, leaning out of the window and firing at the enemy. I was still alive, and that’s what mattered really. I said to Gamma, who’d left the ship on autopilot and was standing nearby, “Shit, at least we survived this game, eh?”.

Only to turn around and find Gamma pointing a large handgun to my head. They decided to dramatically quote an old line from a game:  
  
“Hate to say it but… This game was rigged from the start.”

My eyes widened, and they shot me in the head, point blank, and my body found itself lifted through the air and falling endlessly downwards into a dark night, coloured like a shadowy grave.

Welp; this sucks, I thought to myself.


End file.
